As no stranger to the ongoing debate over the Washington Redskins’ team name and a fan of the team, this year has proved to be one of the most interesting ones. Hey, I need something to keep me interested in a season that is still three wins away from besting last season … in Week 5.
First, the United States Patent and Trademark Office cancelled six of the team’s trademarks, all involving the word “Redskins” and one of them being, adorably, “Redskinettes.”
Then, The Daily Show had the audacity to make defensive Redskins fans actually look at and maybe even talk to real Native Americans who don’t like the team name — people that my fellow Redskins fans have insisted don’t really exist. And the season 18 opener of South Park absolutely destroyed.
And now, as more and more sportscasters refuse to say the team’s name on the air, the FCC is considering banning the word “Redskins” from broadcasts.
Aaaaaaand … that’s where you lost me. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not opposed to changing the team name, especially since most of the arguments for keeping it are utterly moronic when changing it is so much simpler. But changing already obtuse FCC rules to get around what should be an easy decision of conscience or at least of business? That’s a recipe for disaster, and here’s why …
1. We’re creating a whole new class of words banned on the air.
On the face of it, what’s wrong with banning racial slurs from the airwaves — which are not currently in the purview of the FCC? You’d have to consider what we would lose.
Roots, one of the most important mini-series ever produced for television would be censored. Any attempts to remake it would most likely err on the side of avoiding an issue entirely and replace scenes containing the word with some less-effective substitute. (For instance, the recently published version of Huckleberry Finn that replaces “nigger” with “slave.” For the children, of course.)
Nearly every single episode of The Chapelle Show, which may go down in television history as the most courageous sketch comedy show — that is until Key and Peele eventually dethrone it. [All links in this paragraph are NSFW, but perfectly fine if you're a rational adult.]
And those just examples using the unholiest of all unholy racial slurs: “nigger.” “Redskins” isn’t in the same ballpark or even parked at the mall next to that ballpark. (F*ck you, Dan Snyder and your sh*tty stadium.) Of course, that may be only because, thanks to the Washington Redskins, we’re as casual with saying it as Paula Deen with “nigger” — because that’s just how she was raised, ya’ll.
If the FCC follows through on this, though, we won’t just lose racist uses of slurs on television (basically, Redskins games and Cops). We’ll lose the ability to allow the people affected by those terms — The Daily Show episode, for example — to discuss them in front of a national audience who already doesn’t hear enough of their viewpoint as it stands.
It’s why, even though I think the name needs to go, I’m not going to stop saying it.
But, that’s just the intellectual argument against this. More importantly …
2. It is utterly unenforceable.
OK. Let’s say the FCC does it and wrongheadedly decides to delve into race issues. Now what?
Will television and radio stations be unable to broadcast Redskins games and Redskins scores and player updates? That’s not likely considering that the only reason many DC-area people even watch local news is for sports coverage. Every news outlet in the world covers DC current events, but nobody has time for the Capitols, Wizards and Redskins. And the Orioles and Nationals still barely dent coverage of the Yankees and Red Sox.
However, if the FCC ban on “redskins” works like prohibitions on saying conventional swear words, then they don’t have to stop broadcasting games. Stations just have to stop using the team name.
And cover it up everywhere it appears in the image, including shots of fans in the stands and every visible surface at FedEx Field.
And reject or edit ads of local businesses that call themselves “a proud partner of the Washington Redskins.”
Basically, our televisions will become the opposite of mob informants: everything blurred out except the faces.
Neither is likely to happen, no matter how much the FCC wants to solve this problem.
